In major measurement update, Facebook overhauls metrics, makes corrections, adds viewability

In a sort of course correction, Facebook made several announcements Wednesday pertaining to audience and ads measurement on the social network .The news includes several metrics corrections — though none likely to cause as much consternation as September’s revelation that Facebook had been overstating the “average duration of video viewed” due to a miscalculation — more third-party verification, a new blog to communicate ongoing metrics changes, and the formation of a new Measurement Council. “We want to reaffirm our commitment to the market and provide clarity and transparency into the platform,” said Mark Rabkin, Facebook VP engineering for ads, by phone yesterday. “We know we have been evolving quickly, which has led to new user behaviors and new ad formats, and we have heard feedback that clients want more information and transparency on the behavior and advertising metrics that are also evolving. “The vast majority of this work has been in progress throughout the year, however once the video view metric issue happened, we doubled-down on focusing efforts on finding issues and communicate them thoroughly.”